The scent of fresh bagels complemented with a friendly face handing bleary-eyed students a cup of coffee is no longer a familiar scene at two former kiosks on-campus. The only smile students will find these days is from their own reflection in a vending machine.
The library café and Dolan School of Business café, which previously served a variety of a la carte items, have been replaced this year by vending machines due to budget constraints.
Erin Pascual ’05, said, “I used to always go get a bagel or something on the break since its too early to eat breakfast when my turbo starts. But when I went down to the kiosk, I saw it was replaced with vending machines. I only had my card with me, so I couldn’t get anything to eat. It really sucked.”
The library café and business school café now offer six types of vending machines. Three of the vending machines are similar to those found at other campus locations, including a typical snack machine, a Coke products machine, and a Powerade products machine.
New additions include an ice cream novelty machine, a machine that serves coffee, tea and hot chocolate, and a machine containing perishable foods. The perishable food machine contains a variety of options, including a packaged ham and swiss sandwich ($3.50) or a chocolate canned beverage labeled “energy sports milk shake” ($2.50).
The vending machines are supposed to accept StagBucks. However, none of the machines in the library or the business school are currently working with the StagCard system, forcing students to pay cash for their wares.
Liz Maida ’05, was shocked when she went to the library to study and realized she couldn’t buy any food. “Its ridiculous,” she said, “I didn’t even have any cash with me, so I figured I would grab something before my next class in the business school, but then it was the same thing with vending machines there too! I had to wait until 3:30 to eat anything.”
The decision to switch over to a vending system from a kiosk system was made after reviewing food budgets. Every year, from February to the end of April, Jim Fitzpatrick, assistant vice president of student services, goes through a study looking at the budget for primarily the food service department.
For this fiscal year, it was determined that there had to be cuts. “One area we didn’t want to touch was the board plan,” said Fitzpatrick. Unless the board plan, consisting of meals and Stagbucks or dining dollars, was going to be changed, they either had to raise profits or cut programs. They didn’t want to cut the board plan, but relying on increasing revenue was unpredictable because it was unclear how much money the new additions to the Stag Diner would make.
When reviewing profits, it turned out that the only profitable kiosk was the kiosk located in Canisius Hall. The library café and business school locations were not profitable and were losing money. Fitzpatrick said they were then forced to make, “easy, difficult decisions.”
Replacing the kiosks with vending machines was the solution determined to maintain food option for students in these locations, while still maintaining the board plan. If the locations hadn’t been switched over to vending machines, other measures would have had to be taken to cut costs. For example, “We would have had to go back to board plan,” said Fitzpatrick, “perhaps there could only be one entrée at night, or close at 6:30pm instead of 8 pm.”
Cameo vending is supplying the new vending machines, in a partnership with Sodexho Food Services, who currently supply all the food on-campus. Sodexho could ensure food quality, and they are responsible for replacing all of the perishable food items in the machines.
To keep the food fresh, Sodexho is following state health codes for the vending machines. According to health codes, the food in the vending machines must be maintained between 38 and 41 degrees Fahrenheit, and replaced every seven days. To ensure freshness and quality, Fitzpatrick decided to replace the food every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, throwing away any leftover food every time the machine is reloaded.
No Sodexho employees were terminated over the loss of the two kiosk locations.
Fitzpatrick admits, “It’s a little more impersonal, but it can provide students with better service since the locations are open 24 hours a day and we insure quality and freshness.”
The only complaints that Fitzpatrick has received so far are over a lack of personal touch, and over the quality of the food. Fitzpatrick said this was ironic because, “it’s the same food you would find in the Stag, made fresh in the kitchen.”
“Our main focus is to see what we can do to serve students on board plan, and have duty to beach students to have cash options, which is why we have placed vending machines,” said Fitzpatrick. “Everything really flows from the board plan, we continue to try to offer good options and new options.”
Not all students agree however. Maida said, “I didn’t know when the food was put in there. It looked gross … it could have been in there for days. I think it’s a stupid idea and it’s very inconvenient.”
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